


they are all concentric unto thee

by forochel



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-28
Updated: 2010-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forochel/pseuds/forochel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Weir and Lambiel go to Switzerland and are disgusting all over the place.</p>
            </blockquote>





	they are all concentric unto thee

It all starts with this:

 

"Come back to Switzerland with me?" Stéphane asks one night, when they're curled around each other in the middle of Johnny's bed, sleepy and sated. Johnny "hmmm"s agreeably, and falls asleep, his head cushioned in the junction of Stéphane's right arm and chest. When he wakes up the next morning, Stéphane is squinting at his laptop and trying to book plane tickets on the Internet.

 

They're driving from Lausanne to Saxon. Which is to say, Stéphane is driving them from Lausanne to Saxon, because it is too much trouble for Johnny to take the tests, and in any case these roads are mad and Johnny isn't particularly interested in overcompensating on a turn and driving them and their suitcases of clothes and peace offerings to Stéphane's family over a mountain ridge somewhere. Of course, the way Stéphane drives, Johnny thinks they might be better off with him driving instead.

"It has been a long time since I have done this!" Stéphane protests when Johnny voices this opinion. "And in any case, you do not have the proper driving license."

"I just don't feel very safe when you're, y'know, looking down at the map every two minutes."

"I know the way!" Stéphane says very ridiculously, and gestures his knowledge very emphatically with one hand. While it is the height of hypocrisy, Johnny remains steadfastly alarmed by Stéphane's driving safety. "It has just been a long time, okay? But I will get us home safely."

And there it is, that word that Stéphane drops absently, the one that makes something inside of Johnny tremble with uncertainty, because Switzerland is so much home for Stéphane, and Johnny does not know which Stéphane would choose if he had to.

The journey goes more or less smoothly for the most part, until they take a wrong turn while on the Autoroute du Rhône and then get into the roundabout on Avenue de Fully and apparently neither of them can count, because they go round and round four times before they are entirely sure of which exit to go down to get back to the Autoroute.

"Oh, my god," Stéphane says very suddenly, as they are finally speeding along the Route du Léman towards Saxon, his eyes widened almost comically. This, Johnny feels, does not bode well.

"What is it?" he asks almost wearily; if Stéphane ever proposes the romantic roadtrip of their _lives_ Johnny is vetoing it, if only for his blood pressure.

"My vignette! I think it has expired!"

"Oh dear?"

"It is a sticker for the tax on these roads. I hope we do not get caught by the police," Stéphane laments, "Or it will be terrible."

"I doubt it," says Johnny drily, "All you'll have to do is bat your lashes. Failing that, I can bat mine."

Neither of them actually have to bat their lashes at anyone. 

They make their slightly less-than-legal way into Saxon smoothly without any further mishap, though Stéphane in his infinite paranoia takes what he says is the long way round into town. Johnny suspects that all he wants is to show off his home town by taking the scenic route, as they'd passed by a few outlying houses surrounded by rambling gardens and copses of trees before climbing further in altitude. Johnny's breath catches, though, as the town becomes abruptly visible as they crest the top of a rise in the road. It's like a village out of a Hallmark Christmas animation, one of those watercolour cartoons in soft undertones and warm washes, all muted nostalgia and breathtaking beauty. There is lush greenery, too, everywhere in between houses and alongside roads, and reaching up in swathes to the Alps, which loom majestically around the valley that Saxon is nestled in.

Stéphane smiles, almost smugly, and says, "Isn't it lovely? I grew up here, you know."

"Yeah," Johnny breathes, "It - no wonder everyone calls you Prince Charming! You grew up in a _fairytale town_."

Stéphane shoots him an amused look, even as he navigates the treacherous turns in the mountain road, and pulls the car to rest in a bay on the side. "I do not think that is why, Johnny."

"Whatever. Oh my god," Johnny ignores him, "Is your village full of charming, dark-eyed Swiss boys? I might not be able to help myself."

Stéphane lets go of the steering wheel of his car and turns to smile sweetly at Johnny. "They are all too young or too far away for you now, I am afraid. But that is good for me, yes?" 

He reaches up to slide his gloved fingers along Johnny's face tenderly, and tilts his head with his question. Johnny blinks, before snorting, then collapsing with laughter. Stéphane draws back.

"Excuse me?" he says, looking slightly affronted.

"Did you drive us up here to _make out_ before - we meet your parents? Seriously? Is this where all the teenagers go?" Johnny manages to say in between gasping for breath. 

"Well," Stéphane says in a deadpan, though his eyebrows are doing some funny wiggly thing that means he's swallowing down his laughter, "Now that you mention it."

They do end up kissing like teenagers, all awkward positions and giggling giddily in between deep kisses made sloppy by their laughter; it's wonderful and freeing and ridiculously romantic, and they could spend hours like this, perhaps, if not for the demands of the setting sun in the sky and Stéphane's mother in her house.

 

It is dusk when they arrive; the sky is a gorgeous, deep blue, and warm yellow light spills out of the windows and the open door. The familiar figure of Fernanda Lambiel stands in the doorway, watching as Stéphane and Johnny drag their luggage up the shallow steps to the door. Stéphane flings his arms enthusiastically around his mother the minute the door swings shut and kisses her enthusiastically on her cheeks while she holds him tight. Johnny stands there awkwardly, hand still wrapped around the handle of his main luggage case, the other in a loose fist by his side.

"Good evening," says a deep voice from behind Johnny. Johnny jumps and turns around, his heart hammering in his chest because this - this tall man with a slight stoop in his broad shoulders, with salt-and-pepper hair and Stéphane's nose and mouth and hands is Stéphane's father and he very, very badly wants to make a good impression.

"Good evening," Johnny says politely, and in the best French he can muster up, "How are you?"

"I'm fine, thank you," Stéphane's father says equally politely. And then he cocks his head and says with a hint of mischief, "You must have driven very slowly, Stéphane, to stretch a one and a half hour journey so long."

Johnny startles as Stéphane presses up against his side and slides an arm around his waist affectionately.

"We went the long way," Stéphane says cheerfully.

"The mountain way," Fernanda clarifies drily, to Johnny's eternal mortification. He usually is shameless, but being here, in the house of these people, knowing that he is the reason their son never settles properly in Switzerland near them, or just knowing that these are the people who made and brought up and supported Stéphane before they'd even met - it makes him blush at everything and lean back into the steady comfort of Stéphane's embrace.

Stéphane's father, Jacques, smiles at them with warmth. "There is dinner in the kitchen - we were waiting for you. Leave the luggage here, you can bring it upstairs after you eat."

The kitchen is a large and homely affair and it is filled with people. It appears that the only reason only Stéphane's parents greeted them at the doorway is that it would not have been possible for all of them to fit into the hallway. Stéphane's grandmother, wizened and frail, but with lively dark eyes just like Stéphane's is there, huddling in a chair. Stéphane's sister is visiting with her children, and the room is filled with excited babbling and laughter as she manoeuvres between the countertop and the large, rough-carved wooden table deftly.

Stéphane cries out happily and stretches his arms out to her; she smacks the pot down hurriedly onto the table and sidles around her children to hug him tightly and buss him on the cheeks. 

"Why are you here?" Stéphane asks curiously, when all the introductions have been made and they are all seated and eating; the children forgoing interrogating their Uncle Stéphane's Young Man in favour of food.

"Oh," Silvia says airily, "to visit."

He gives her a suspicious look. 

She gaily ignores him to interrupt the improbable conversation about E.U. politics between Johnny and Jacques to say, "Johnny, we have heard _so much_ about you!"

There is a pause, and then Stéphane points out carefully, "But you have met him before, at Kings on Ice? And Maman has met him too, when we were very young."

"Yes, but that is such a long time ago and many things have happened since then. It is so nice to see him after hearing so much."

Johnny laughs uncertainly and says, "I hope I do not disappoint?"

"Oh" Grandméré interrupts with a wicked gleam in her eye, "He cannot stop talking about you. I don't know how you will do it, but no, not so far."

Stéphane blushes madly. Johnny grins; he cannot help it, and reaches out under the table to squeeze Stéphane's knee.

It is only when one of the twins throws bread at his brother that dinner (and the impending fight) is broken up; Johnny tries to help, but is shooed away with a fond pat on his bum. "You will be having plenty of time to wash dishes for us, Johnny," Fernanda says, "Go away now and - Silvia! Your children are going to run into a wall!"

Stéphane has a hand wrapped around Johnny's wrist; he pulls Johnny away stealthily in the ensuing panic and Johnny goes willingly, laughing at the chaos raging behind them.

They elect unanimously to leave all their bags but the essentials in the car, and haul the cases up the stairs without too much effort. Stéphane leads Johnny to a door with a ladybug sign nailed to it that says "STÉPHANE'S ABODE" in French. He pauses to beam at his door, and then wrap his arms around Johnny with vengeance when Johnny snorts with laughter. "V-very cute," Johnny chokes out, and then shrieks as Stéphane employs his fingers in an attack upon his sides. "No! Stop - ah," he flaps his arms uselessly and tries to hipcheck Stéphane; instead he almost sends them tumbling over the railing. 

"Oh my god," Johnny breathes, as Stéphane pulls them back into safety, "You really are going to be death of me."

Stéphane grins unrepentantly, and gestures at the door. "This is my door!" he says, grinning, and Johnny gives him his best bitchface. Stéphane ignores him.

"And this is my room!" Stéphane announces grandly as he flings open the door. 

Johnny smiles and says, "Yes, I know, I saw it on the internet."

" _Fans_ ," Stéphane says almost disparagingly, "they have to spoil my plans with their Google."

"It was a very cute cat," Johnny says soothingly, "And also I think it was your picture."

"She is my sister's cat, and that is not the point. Is the bed big enough for the two of us?"

Johnny looks at it: the bed is tucked up against the far wall, and there are pillows and soft toys strewn all over it. He looks out of the window set in the wall, at the head of the bed, and sees tiled roofs and the sweeping back of a mountain. He imagines lying against the wall with his back to this juxtaposition of natural majesty and human comfort, curled up with Stéphane to ground him in this bed in a valley richer with dreams and joy than he could have imagined. He flops down onto the bed and holds his arms out to Stéphane with a smile; he hasn't seemed to have stopped smiling since they drove into Saxon. 

"If we squeeze, I think so." 

The smile Stéphane gives him is deep and grateful, and Johnny hasn't the time to dissect it before Stéphane is flinging himself onto him with a deranged cackle and then they're tussling and play-fighting, knocking soft toys off the bed as they climb over each other and try not to fall off onto the floor. Stéphane has the upper hand for a moment, and he pins Johnny down with his hips and his lips; Johnny gasps into the kiss as he grinds up involuntarily, arms wrapping around Stéphane's shoulders as they melt into each other. And then as they break apart for breath, Johnny turns his head aside and wheezes out a laugh, before struggling to push Stéphane off him.

"What is it?" Stéphane asks, brows furrowed.

"I - the - your bed covers. They have ladybugs on them. I cannot do this, it is too - innocent." Johnny tries to explain, and pushes Stéphane away when he pouts and leans down to mouth at Johnny's jaw, "Really, Stéphane! I'd feel as though I'm despoiling your virtue."

"It has already been despoiled," Stéphane points out, but he rolls over and squirms around to rest his head in Johnny's lap and give him a deep and soulful look.

Johnny huffs fondly and pets at his hair, and then jumps when Stéphane's Grandméré, who is apparently a cockblocker, knocks on their door and shouts "DESSERT, BOYS", before creaking away while chuckling very audibly to herself.

"It is impossible," Stéphane laments, burying his face in Johnny's thigh.

"That's what I said," Johnny points out almost snippily, but his hand is gentle in Stéphane's hair, and Stéphane snuffles sadly into the denim. They stay like that for a while, soaking in the comfort of the moment, before Stéphane rolls off and stands up, offering an arm gallantly to Johnny. Johnny takes it, heaving himself to his feet, and lets Stéphane press a quick kiss to the amused quirk of his lips before they go downstairs.

 

A few days after Silvia leaves with her devil children, Fernanda sends them on a mission.

"Maman likes the apricots as they are now," Stéphane tells Johnny confidentially, "They are very cheap now, too, because the harvest is almost over."

"I grew up near farms too, Stéphane," Johnny points out drily. 

"So you did," Stéphane agrees amiably, and tucks his hand into Johnny's. It is, Johnny feels, well nigh impossible to have an argument with Stéphane when he is drunk on Switzerland. 

They are walking towards an orchard some point beyond the last house on the western border of the village, carrying a wide wicker basket and a flask of water each. The air is cool and the sunshine warm where it caresses their backs and the tops of their heads as they pass in and out of the dappled shadows of the trees on either side of the path. Up ahead, there is a gate set into a thick hedge that comes up to mid-chest. The gate seems like it's grown out of the gnarled branches of the hedge, but that is a distinct creak and whine as Stéphane pushes it open, standing aside to let Johnny through first.

A few leaves shake loose as Johnny wedges the basket and himself through the gap. They alight on the checkered linen cloth folded in the basket. 

The gate swings shut behind Stéphane as he follows through and pushes Johnny onwards with a hand in the small of his back. He doesn't remove it as they walk on.

3 or 4 metres in front of them the orchard starts abruptly, rows and rows of squat trees with long branches, laced with vibrantly green leaves, that curve up to the sky, like phalanxes of umbrellas blown inside out. As they walk in between the trees, under the branches that arch over their heads, dappled green light plays through the leaves, making shadows dance on the burnt brown bark and the yellow-green grass springy beneath their feet. A scattering of apricots, golden-orange and ripened late, still dot the trees, while a few overripe ones, bruised pink-purple-brown, nestle in the grass, split open and staining the grass dark reddish-purple. In the air hangs an almost cloyingly sweet odour. 

"Okay!" Stéphane says excitedly, "I will start picking from there!" He points at some tree far off in the distance to their right, "And you can start picking from the opposite way! And we can meet in the middle, which is here."

"That is colossally stupid." 

"What do you mean, I am stupid?" Stéphane thumps him on the arm.

"I'm just saying," Johnny sighs," that you'll get bored and come wandering over to talk to me, or you'll get tired of holding the basket and come over to whine at me, and this divide and conquer thing you're thinking of is going to be an exercise in futility. So we may as well pick the apricots together." 

A ridiculous grin splits Stéphane's face in two and he coos, "Oh, Johnny, _mon cher_ , you should have just said you cannot do without me."

"I did not say that!" Johnny says indignantly, "I said -"

"Okay!" Stéphane interrupts cheerfully, "Let us start with this tree!"

Stéphane is one of the most annoying human beings on the planet. It is beyond Johnny how the rest of the world just _does his bidding_ or falls disgustingly in love with him at the drop of a hat. 

They meander between the trees with no real purpose other than to fill their baskets with apricots; this they do in companionable silence, which is interrupted occasionally by the high-pitched scree of the chamois in the background, and the soft scuffling of squirrels in the trees. 

 

The proprieter of the orchard is a grizzled old man, and when he appears like magic from behind a tree Johnny for one heart-stopping moment thinks that Stéphane has actually connived him into fruit-burgling. They stare at each other, confusion writ clear on both their faces, until Stéphane strolls in and says cheerfully, "Good morning, Mr. Ronsard!"

The puzzled frown on Mr. Ronsard's face eases into an affectionate grimace, and he nods at Stéphane and says, "Good afternoon to you too, young Stéphane. Past noon now, it is."

"Is it?" Stéphane rejoins cheerfully, "Well, we'll be off to that meadow that no-one knows belongs to whom, if Maman calls asking."

"Fernanda having you do the hard work, eh?" The old man's wrinkled face creases further with laughter, and he claps Johnny on the shoulder. The familiarity is nice, as is the fact that the old man is speaking to him in French. The assumption there is heartening, or perhaps Ronsard doesn't know a word of English. Either way, Johnny gives him a pitiful look and says, "Yes, my back is breaking."

Ronsard lets out a resounding bark of laughter that echoes around the orchard. "You'd best take your friend off to lunch, Stéphane, even slaves in Athens had their rights!"

 

"Couldn't we have left these with him?" Johnny asks ten minutes later, as they trudge along a narrow dirt path almost grown over by grass.

"Oh, no," Stéphane says cheerfully, "we are taking the short cut back home."

" ... There is a short cut?" Johnny asks dangerously.

"Yes?"

"And there is no way we could not have walked it here?"

"I don't know why you complain so much," Stéphane sniffs, "America is much bigger than Switzerland."

"That's why we _drive_."

"And that is why the Swiss are healthier and can eat more chocolate. Good chocolate!"

"That's rubbish."

"We are here!" Stéphane declared cheerfully, "And also, we are hitching a ride back home with the tractor, but this morning we woke up too late for that."

"Excuses," Johnny says as a matter of principle, but there's no heat to it, not when Stéphane is spreading out a blanket for Johnny to flop gratefully down on and spread out languorously with a deep, affected sigh.

"Do we have lunch?" Johnny asks, after an indefinable time of just lying there in the grass and listening to the sounds of life in the Alpine meadows.

"Mmmm," Stéphane says indistinctly, having just bitten into an apricot. He slurps at the juice dribbling down his chin and continues, "Water. And apricots."

"Ste _phane_."

"And sandwiches."

"Better."

"There is an apricot feast," Stéphane says lazily, "In August."

"Bully for you, then." Johnny says equally lazily.

There is a short, puzzled pause. "Pardon me?"

"It means good for you."

"Okay." There is a pause, and then Stéphane burbles apricot juice, laughing at some private joke.

"You're gross," Johnny tells him indulgently.

"And yet I am loved anyway." Stéphane is serene.

"Unfortunately," Johnny sighs.

They subside into companionable silence as they attend to the important things in life, being the consumption of water and sandwiches and apricots while bathing in the warm glow of the autumnal sun.

 

Saxon is both like and unlike where Johnny grew up. It is also a small town (a village, really) and it is idyllic and slow-moving, caught between centuries of tradition and encroaching modernity, seen in the way ugly buildings line the main road into Saxon while orchards and fields stretch out from the mountains - you can never get away from the mountains and the lakes here in Switzerland. Instead of English everyone speaks French and at least a smattering of a few other languages. Here, lolling around in sweet-smelling grass under the wide blue sky that is closer, measurable in the way the Alps reach up to the clouds, here Johnny's soul expands and soars; his fingertips tingle with it. Here he feels loose and light; the airy natural beauty of this place is as awesome as the gilded domes and elaborate artistry in Russia. 

Johnny, usually so eloquent, stumbles over his words as he tries to tell Stéphane this. Stéphane looks at him with wonder and soft gladness in his eyes.

"This place is in my bones," he tells Johnny very seriously on this brightly lit day in the middle of a meadow where yellow flowers dot the grass and the bees buzz lazily about. Far away, a tractor growls. "In my bones and my heart I carry the - essence of this place with me. Maybe I don't have the same wonder as you, because she is an old friend for me. But I think I understand."

He reaches across the gap between their bodies to twine his fingers with Johnny's loosely; their fingers catch and stick with the apricot juice only half-dried on their skin. This might be a confession of some sort, Johnny thinks dimly, but he is soaking in the moment and the cadence of Stéphane's voice; he is drinking deeply of the beauty and the perfection right here and now.

Stéphane is doing something with their hands. He has brought them to his lips, ksising the soft skin on the back of Johnny's hand, licking at the webbing of skin between his fingers and lapping languidly up along the length of them. His eyes dance wickedly as Johnny squirms and sits up; Stéphane's mouth leaves Johnny's fingers and captures his as Johnny starts to protest. He licks at the stubborn seam of Johnny's lips; his smile and his fingers stroking at the nape of Johnny's neck coaxing them apart. These kisses are wet and slow and sweetly lazy; they take their time here to touch and relearn and explore. Stéphane makes a joyful noise low in the back of his throat as he smiles into a kiss; Johnny nips at his lower lip and he laughs, arms braced at Johnny's side in a loose embrace.

"Everything I could not do as a youth I am doing now with you," he says apropos of nothing.

"Oh, I see," Johnny replies archly, "You only want me for fulfilment of your wayward teenage fantasies."

Stéphane noses along his cheek and bites gently at his earlobe for that. 

"No," he whispers, "Not only that."

Stéphane can feel the heat from Johnny's cheek and it is so funny that Johnny will blush at this but not walking around clad only in furs. He is not so stupid as to say this to Johnny though, so he pushes and over they go. Johnny's eyes sparkle with laughter, and he reaches up to frame Stéphane's face with his hands.

"Are we really doing this in the middle of someone else's field?" 

There is no one in sight for as far as the eye can see.

"Yes," Stéphane replies firmly, and leans down to kiss Johnny, bracing himself on his forearms.

Johnny wraps his hands around the softened jut of Stéphane's hips and holds them down against his, grinding up and into the sweet friction of denim on denim; he wraps a leg round the back of Stéphane's knee and _tugs_ , so that Stéphane crashes down atop of him. He luxuriates in the weight of Stéphane pushing him into the earth, the slick thrust and skim of their tongues in his mouth; the air about them is sweet with the smell of grass and apricot juice and the particular fragrance of Stéphane's shampoo - Johnny breathes this in deeply, through his nose, and pulls back to pepper Stéphane's jaw and the tight cords in his neck with bites and kisses. The sound their mouths make as they pull apart is obscene and loud, and he grins against the sweat pooling in the hollow of Stéphane's throat.

"Come on," he purrs, and his voice is sex-thick and growly and really, Johnny _loves_ hearing himself like this, as does Stéphane because - Stéphane's eyes close and his mouth falls open as his hips jutter forward arrhythmically. Johnny squirrels away this image of his, the look on his face and the halo the sun forms around his hair. He comes soon after, as Stéphane breathes heavily into his neck and works his hand inside Johnny's jeans. 

 

They come back from the apricot trip sticky-sweet and tired, bearing their baskets of apricots to turn into jam and sweets and tarts and all manner of lovely things. Johnny is slightly sunburned, and there is a spattering of freckles starting to emerge across the bridge of Stéphane'snose.

In the kitchen they collapse onto the chairs and stretch their arms out across their table, listening wearily to Fernanda's humming as she bustles about stirring things that smell mouth-wateringly delicious.

The door bangs open and close as Johnny is dragging himself up to help set the table; Stéphane, the lazy ass, is still sprawled all over his chair and smiling lazily at nothing in particular.

"I am very hungry!" Stéphane's father booms from the hallway, "Do we have dinner?"

They do have dinner - they have stew and cheese and apricots-and-cream, which Johnny had not even known existed until he put it in his mouth and spontaneously declared himself having a mouth orgasm. It is probably a mark of how remarkable the Lambiel family is that they barely bat an eyelid. Or maybe it is just a result of having seen Stéphane through all his weird phases, including the cat costume one.

 

Johnny finally gets a tour of the town a few days after Apricot Day. He has named it Apricot Day because he is firmly not thinking about how it should be Befouled A Pristine Alpine Meadow Day or anything of the sort. Stephane is also unusually excitable today: his words are tumbling all over each other and he's dashing back and forth between Johnny and whatever next Wonder of Martigny it is that Johnny is being shown. Johnny can be patient, so he smiles and nods at all the right places and waits for the other shoe to drop.

"I know you are not religious," Stéphane says seriously, apropos of nothing as they sit in a cafe having tea, "but I wish to bring you to our chapel. It is very beautiful."

Johnny can feel his eyes crinkle when he replies equally formally, "That is very sweet of you, Stephane. I would love to see your chapel."

The smile on Stéphane's face should be wider, really, and Johnny's starting to feel distinctly concerned - that smile should be a _grin_ , not wobbly round the edges and watery-weak.

But Stephane's grip is sure and tight when they step out of the shop and turn towards the chapel, glinting in the sun. The walk there is almost hurried, at the pace Stephane is setting, but Johnny's decided to humour Stephane and he strides right along with him. The air is cool and crisp, in any case, the perfect sort of weather for brisk-walking. 

"Right, okay," says Stéphane as he leads Johnny up the path, almost bouncing in something Johnny thinks is excitement. "Here is the churchyard, there are many flowers and benches for us to sit after a service, and often we gather here for picnics maybe on Sundays, I am not so sure about now. And here," he says while bouncing over the threshold into the chapel and lowering his voice while he does so, "is the chapel, and I think my family usually sits in this pew and - um," he fumbles in his pocket and brings out a box and Johnny's brain goes absolutely blank, "A ring, um, please marry me?"

The nervousness in Stéphane's voice is poorly concealed as the sing-song tour guide tone abruptly drops away, and Johnny's brain continues to exist in a void of numbness. Stéphane is blinking those dark, expressive eyes at him while Johnny just sort of stares at the nondescript silver band in Stéphane's palm. He sits down on a pew with a thump to continue staring at Stéphane, who has dramatically gone down on a knee, and is gripping Johnny's left hand in his right, like it is a lifeline.

And then Johnny asks, "Is this what this whole trip has been about?"

There must be something in his voice, though, because Stéphane relaxes a little and murmurs bashfully, "I've always wanted to propose in the chapel." 

It's so quintessentially Stéphane, this romanticism and whimsy and determination, that Johnny has to lean down to kiss him lightly and breathe, "yes, you idiot," against his lips.

" _Oh_ ," Stéphane exhales, glad and relieved. His face smooths out and brightens up, and then he is kneeling up and laughing giddily into Johnny's mouth, fingers curled into the soft hair at the nape of Johnny's neck and stroking along his jaw, and there is joy and relief and love expanding in Johnny's chest at this feeling of being held like something invaluably precious, like Stéphane never want let him go. He does let Johnny go eventually, though, because a crick is about to develop in Johnny's neck and there is only so much Stéphane's knees can take. They sit side by side in the pew, talking quietly in hushed tones, savouring this secret between them and enjoying the way their fingers twine together, their rings glinting in the warm afternoon sunlight filtering in through the stained-glass windows.

 

The secret doesn't last very long, of course, because Fernanda claps her hands to her cheeks when they get home and engulfs them in a massive hug, and then Johnny has to call his mum.

Johnny's mother shrieks over the phone, and the burst of static as he jerks it away from his ear makes Stéphane wince in sympathy. He laughs, almost giddy with the sheer unexpected joy of it all, and promises to email her the details of their wedding. 

" _Two_ weddings, Johnny," Patti commands, "You are going to have one on the cornfields frozen over if it kills me."

"Mu- _uum_ ," Johnny whines, five again, "You promised to forget I ever said that."

"A mother never forgets," Patti says fondly, "Now you and Stephane take care of yourselves! And don't forget!"

"Cornfields?" Stephane asks when they hang up. There is a smile playing about his lips and Johnny feels that there will be imminent cries of "Oh, that is so beautiful!" and "Mon chere Johnny, of course we will!" in his near future, so he rolls over and buries his face in a pillow. Derailment for experts, Johnny thinks to himself. 

They spend the rest of the evening before dinner in a tickle-fight. This might be happiness.

 

The inevitable happens one morning, as they are trapped inside the house by the rain.

"So strange, this rain," Stéphane muses as he sits, cross-legged, on the window seat and looks morosely out into the grey curtain that sluices off the roof and onto the street outside. Johnny makes an inquiring noise and tilts his head up to raise his eyebrows at Stéphane, from where he is leaning against the seat, legs stretched out before him. "Martigny is usually dry, you see, and autumn is driest of all. And now it is almost autumn-"

" _Almost_ ", Johnny interjects mischievously. Stéphane kicks him lightly on the back of the head.

"I am telling you things! It is just very strange for it to rain so hard, because the rains are further up in the mountains, not down here." Stéphane sighs. "Global warming, I think you could say."

Johnny tries very hard not to laugh, but Fernanda has no compunctions about doing so. "You talk like an old man, Stéphane! Older than your father, and he at least is still working while you are lazing about."

"I am _bored_ , Maman," Stéphane says winsomely.

"Ach," says Fernanda, "Always like this. You have given me those eyes ever since you first opened them and started bawling, Stéphane, and they have not ever had the effect on me you wish to make."

Perking up, Johnny says, "I knew it!"

"Oh no," Stéphane says quietly into his hands, as Fernanda continues on with her captive audience.

"Always, always, he would give the neighbours, the butcher, his teachers - well except for Peter, but Salomé - everyone! That look with his eyes and they would all say yes, yes, and give him chocolate. Just like he is now! I do not know how I managed to make such a boy, really," she says, and looks vaguely fond, even as she continues, "it is good, the figure skating, I think! Or he would be breaking laws left and right and getting away with it because of his face."

"Stéphane _does_ have a nice face," Johnny agrees.

"Too nice!" Fernanda says stridently, "And I am glad he has you, now, because we have always said that he would grow up to break hearts and I think he has broken hearts - has he broken yours before, Johnny?"

The demand, sudden and unexpected, makes Stéphane cry out, "Maman!" in indignation, where before that he had been trying to become one with the curtains and the window seat. Fernanda grins at her son, and Johnny reaches up to pat comfortingly at Stéphane's ankle as he replies, "He wouldn't dare, I think."

Stéphane unfolds himself from the window seat and slides down to sit next to Johnny on the floor, slinging his arms around Johnny in a loose hug. 

"I have not and I would not," he says firmly, half to Johnny and half to his mother. 

Fernanda beams at them, her dark eyes crinkling and reminding Johnny very overwhelmingly of Stéphane. She puts down her book and gets up, bustling out of the room with an admonition to "Stay where you are!", as though either Johnny or Stéphane were feeling particularly inclined to moving.

Johnny slumps over to lean on Stéphane's chest and asks, "What is she doing?"

"I don't know," Stéphane says cheerfully, "Would you like to hear more about the weather in Martigny?"

"No!" Johnny half-sputters, half-laughs, and thumps Stéphane gently on the chest. 

"Ouf," Stéphane grins, "Not even married yet and I am already a victim of abuse."

As she sweeps back into the room, Fernanda gives them a droll look and announces, "I have baby pictures of Stéphane", nodding at the pile of heavy-looking, leather-bound volumes in her arms. 

"OH MY GOD!" Johnny sits up excitedly, narrowly missing Stéphane's chin as he does so. "ARE THERE NAKED PICTURES?"

"I think so, yes," Fernanda says gleefully, "He never wanted to put on his clothes after he had a bath. We were so sure he was going to turn blue one day, because even though Martigny is in a warm part of Switzerland it is still very cold for babies."

"Oh no," Stéphane says dismally, "Oh no, oh no, oh no. Johnny - "

"Shhhh," Johnny swats at him absently and takes a few albums from Fernanda as she eases herself down onto the floor next to them, "This I have to see."

"Okay," says Stéphane, and makes to get up, "I will just go and smother myself with my pillow, then."

"Oh no you _don't_ ," Johnny declares, and throws himself into Stéphane's lap. "You are going nowhere, my man."

"Only because you are going to kill me first," Stéphane says, and eases his legs out from under Johnny, "by embarrassment."

"Nonsense," Fernanda dismisses, and flips open the first album. Johnny coos as Stéphane looks on in dread; it's a montage of Stéphane as a baby, from him as a tiny newborn with only wisps of dark hair on his head to him at about five months old, dark eyes bright and curious, and then squinched shut against the flash of the camera. 

There are the naked toddler pictures as promised, and Stéphane only moans into the back of Johnny's neck while Johnny shrieks with laughter, shaking as he pores over the many snapshots of a tiny Stéphane posing unabashedly for the camera in nothing but his pampers and a wide smile, baby fat dimpling everywhere and dark hair curling wildly against his neck. And then Stéphane is clothed again, in footsie pyjamas and wrapped up like a furry dumpling, to ward off the cold of winter; in a blue singlet and striped shorts and leaning into his older sister's side, all chubby-cheeked and pixie-like cast to his face ("You look _evil_ here, Johnny tells Stéphane, delighted, "Like some Prince of the Unseelie or something!"); slightly older and with a haircut that makes him look like Spock, cherubic and serious, looking out at the ice with the beginnings of dedication in those eyes.

Stéphane in the photographs gets older as the morning goes by, taller and ganglier but not any less disgustingly good-looking. 

"How," Johnny asks enviously, "does one go from disgustingly adorable to disgustingly handsome without going through a truly disgusting phase in between?"

Fernanda shrugs, but the line of her shoulders is proud and the lines in her face crease in a fond smile as she reaches over to pat Stéphane's shoulder. Stéphane does not bother answering; he just hooks his chin over Johnny's shoulder and closes his eyes contentedly. His mother leaves them there like that, and smiles to herself in the kitchen at the sound of the rise and fall of their voices in the living room, and Johnny's occasional shout of laughter.

 

"At our wedding," Johnny announces grandly one morning over toast and apricot jam, "I shall wear the dress."

"No, I want to wear the dress!" Stéphane protests.

Grandméré promptly chokes on her tea.

"You'd look terrible in a dress, honey," Johnny tells him gently. "Your face isn't made for it."

There is a pause, as Stéphane considers this, and his face in the glass panels of the grandfather clock ticking steadily away in the corner of the kitchen.

"Well, if we have our wedding _on ice_ we could both wear sort of dressy things!" Stéphane says brightly, as though everything has been solved and he hadn't a week ago said something about dreaming about being wedded in the chapel since he was a child.

"There is no rink in Saxon, Stéphane," Fernanda reminds him.

" _Maman_ ," Stéphane says, with a note of whine in his voice.

"If we have two weddings," Johnny says thoughtfully, and also hoping very hard that Stéphane has forgotten about that phone call with Patti, "We could have one on the cornfields out back, at home."

There is a clink as Stéphane drops his spoon and stares at Johnny, his dark eyes all wide and shiny. "We could have it on the pond! In the winter!"

"Not if you want to drown yourselves and Father Clement, you will not," Grandméré says tartly. 

"Oh," Stéphane says, crestfallen, "I suppose we will have two weddings, then. Would you like to visit America, Mémére?"

"At my age, I have nothing to lose."

Johnny puts down his mug of tea onto his plate with a clink and gathers it all up to wash in the sink; Fernanda Lambiel likes doing things like hand, which Johnny enjoys, here in this idyllic village nestled in the sweeping, warm beauty of the Rhône valley. Over his shoulder, he says, "You know, Stéphane, this only means we have two pairs of clothes to wear."

"This is true!" Stéphane says cheerfully, and so it is settled -

 

Johnny Weir and Stéphane Lambiel come together in possibly holy union not once, but _twice_ , and there may have been tears shed and iced-over cornfields involved, but most importantly of all there was also apricot jam cake and extremely fetching costumes, and the promise of a happily ever after.


End file.
